Unfortunate Last Lines

24 Apr 2008 14:40 by Mark

I sometimes think about death; not in the "ooh, I feel in the mood to write some poetry nobody will ever read" way, but rather in the "ah, yes, one day in the future I shall be no more and the world will miss me even though it pretends it won't" manner.

I've thought about what my last words alive might be. My preferred choice is: "Wow! I outlived every person and species in the entire universe!" but I'm rational enough to appreciate that this probably won't happen. Not certainly though. There's always hope.

In any event, I've also considered things I shouldn't say too. Although it's not that important - you'll be dead anyway so who cares? - it would be nice to have a last line that wasn't ironic or imbecilic in some manner. May I recommend, therefore, that you never say any of these in public or private.

• "I'll prove there's no poison in this coffee."
• "I'm fairly certain you defuse these things by cutting the red wire."
• "Yes, of course I deactivated the snakepit trap."
• "The odds of this being ebola are astronomical."
• "This cliff's been here a thousand years; it's not going anywhere."
• "I'm not worth the attention of a ninja assassin."
• "That sounded like a bear but why would one be in the bathroom?"
• "I'd hardly start poking around with a screwdriver if I hadn't switched the electricity off at the mains now, would I?"
• "I hope I'm not the only person in the world allergic to butterflies."
• "Thank God this volcano is extinct."
• "For one second I thought that giant, plastic spider was real."
• "You're sure this is just a starting pistol, right?"
• "Dick Cheney's invited me out quail hunting!"
• "What rhinoceros?"
• "There's no need to worry about me spontaneously combusting."
• "I think I can survive one night in a haunted house."
• "Why on Earth would the soviets want to nuke Torquay?"
• "Nobody ever died from poking a squirrel with a stick."
• "Can anyone else smell cyanide?"
• "Myxomatosis shouldn't affect humans though."
• "They'd shut off the rope bridge across the chasm if it wasn't safe."
• "Let's switch the Large Hadron Collider on then."